Gold rush on treacherous shoreline

ORGANISED gangs of workers have swarmed over the sands of Morecambe Bay in the last year in a cockles "gold rush". What was once a tiny cottage industry for local fishermen and their families is now big business.

ORGANISED gangs of workers have swarmed over the sands of Morecambe Bay in the last year in a cockles "gold rush".

What was once a tiny cottage industry for local fishermen and their families is now big business, attracting workers from across the country and illegal immigrants from China and Eastern Europe.

It is estimated the cockles in the bay are worth £6m and workers can earn up to £1,000 a week.

Many of the cockles are destined for the restaurant tables of France and Spain where hand-gathered, undamaged specimens are a delicacy.

Market prices for the highest-calibre cockles are £2,000 a tonne, although a typical haul will fetch around £500 a tonne.

A large gang of well-equipped workers can gather several tonnes in a day.

The first signs of organised labour gangs targeting the sands at Morecambe Bay were seen two years ago when large groups of unemployed men from North Wales, Scotland, Teesside and Merseyside descended on the area to trawl the mudflats.

Their arrival followed the closing of fisheries in the Dee Estuary, Solway Firth and other parts of Scotland when cockles there were found to be contaminated.

Abandoned

In November 2002, large groups of migrant workers were seen trawling the estuary sands, prompting concerns among local wildlife experts about the effect on the natural environment.

One gang drove their minibus on to the sands. It became stuck and was abandoned, polluting the immediate area with oil and fuel.

As word spread of the rich pickings in the bay, gangs from China and Eastern Europe began to arrive.

Last August, police arrested 37 men on the sands after complaints from local people about commercial exploitation of the Morecambe Bay sands. Officers found 10 of them were illegal immigrants from China.

The North West and North Wales Fisheries Committee closed the main cockle beds amid concerns the pickers were decimating the area.

It was estimated pickers were taking 50 tonnes of cockles away each day.

In December, the beds were reopened but pickers were required to apply for a licence before venturing out on the sands. Applicants are required to give their national insurance number in a bid to root out benefit claimants and illegal immigrants.

But the pickers continued to swarm over the sands and two weeks after they were reopened 30 pickers had to be rescued by hovercraft when they became stranded in the bay.